Twice in the past year or so I have done blogs about how poor health may be related to sitting. Since then, I have made an effort to get up once an hour, even when I am involved in a detailed computer project, and move around. I keep a list of chores and short projects that need to be done in the house or in the yard, so when I get up I have something interesting or useful to do. I am seeing little unexpected benefits.
This morning I got an e-newsletter about research that shows standing may also be better for brain function than sitting.
Several years ago I was hired to do a photo shoot when a company called Brainstorm did a seminar at a retirement center in the Hill Country. As I was taking pictures, I was listening. I was fascinated with what I heard. At the end when they told participants they had an e-newsletter, I signed up too.
I am going to copy in most of the newsletter. I haven’t implemented any of their suggestions because the newsletter just came this morning. But I thought the research was very interesting. The study involved children who spend so much of their days sitting at desks. I am applying it to myself as a senior adult who wants to avoid age related memory loss.
After I post this blog, I’m going to do the dishes. After you read this blog, you should stand up too!
Not that long ago, the idea of a “standing desk” (creating a workplace where you voluntarily stay on your feet) seemed far-fetched except for the ergonomically-impaired.
Standing desks have been lauded previously for their positive effects on physical health, reducing sitting time and lowering certain health risks linked to prolonged sedentary time. In fact, just last year new guidelines published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine advised that desk-based employees should work standing up in order to curb sedentary time.
Hence today’s health mantra: sitting is the new smoking.
But could standing desks confer positive mental effects? A new study, published in the International Journal of Environmental and Public Health, suggests so.
Researchers from the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health took notice of anecdotal evidence from teachers that students focused and behaved better while using standing desks. In previous studies that focused on energy expenditure, teachers reported increased attention and better behavior of students who used standing desks.
The research team studied 34 freshman high school students who used standing desks. They tested the students at the beginning of their freshman year and then again at the end of the year by using an experimental design that looked at neurocognitive benefits.
Four computerized tests evaluated executive functions, which are cognitive skills we use to assess tasks, break them into steps and hold onto them in the mind until we complete them. Such functions are mostly regulated in regions at the front of the brain. To measure changes, the researchers used a portable brain-imaging device called functional near-infrared spectroscopy to look at changes in the frontal brain. This involved placing biosensors on the students’ foreheads as they were being tested.
And the results?
“Continued use of standing desks was associated with significant improvements in executive function and working memory capabilities.” They also observed changes in corresponding brain activation patterns.
In other words, brain activity was improved in exactly the skills required for learning – attention, short term memory and analysis.
Read the full story here:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/305158.php
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